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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

What do we really want?

I think the most important thing we can do about losing weight is to decide if we really want to. We can talk about it all day, all night and all week, but if that talking is not followed by actions, then we've done nothing -- except maybe burn a few calories with our jaw muscles.

We have to ask ourselves a few questions:

Do we want to lose weight?

Are we willing to make the lifestyle changes that we will have to make to lose weight?

Is losing weight more important that the reasons we overeat?

What do we really want?

These questions have to be answered by each of us. And then we can decide what to do. If we decide that losing weight isn't more important that overeating, then we can make different choices accordingly. And if we decide that we do want to lose weight, then we must different choices, also.

I have a list of reasons as to why I want to lose weight. I refer to them when I'm discouraged. I've printed them off and put them on my fridge door on bright orange paper. It's a visual reminder of what my decision is and why I choose it.

I have utterly failed at staying on the "straight and narrow" for the last four years.

I want to lose weight, but, obviously, something is preventing me from acting rationally and positively to achieve that end result.

It sounds dumb to say overeating is preferable to losing weight, but that's the nonverbal message I send to myself (and visibly to others) every day. Why? I don't quite know at this point. I have my suspicions that I'm going through a rebellious stage, but I only hurt myself by doing that. It's completely irrational to me.

This is what my doctor meant about treating overeating as an addiction. It's not as simple as saying we choose to do something that's not good for us instead of doing the right thing. It isn't "I want"... it's more "I NEED!" Just like a drug or alcohol we NEED those wrong foods chemically or we're jonesing for them. And that's what she meant about getting sober. It isn't easy. It takes more than willpower and a list of permitted foods. We have to set our lives up to succeed.

For me, the motivation is wanting to live. When your doctor says "Death is grabbing for you," it changes your perspective some.